He was trapped. Something pinned him in place. But what? He looked down and immediately wished he hadn’t. Nagini was curling her way around his legs, pressing on him so that he couldn’t move. He tried to inch away, but his body throbbed, and his arm screamed in pain.

“Join me, Harry.”

His head jerked up. Voldemort was holding out a wand in his long, thin fingers. He was smiling maniacally at Harry. “Join me,” the wizard repeated. “Join me, and we can rule together.”

Harry shook his head, unable to speak. Nagini was still squeezing, and every bruise was amplified. He whimpered.

No. It wasn’t Nagini. It was Hunter. He almost sobbed in relief as the weight lifted off him and Hunter slithered away. He wanted to call to his friend to come back, but he couldn’t. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. Where was he?

“Kill the spare,” Voldemort told him. Harry looked down again, and this time he was holding the wand. He followed its path with his eyes. Snape was lying on the ground. He was bleeding. Harry cried out. Was Snape dead? Had he killed him? He hadn’t meant to. He bent over the man, ready to check his pulse, but lifeless eyes stared back at him. His breaths came in short gasps as he realized that Snape was dead. He didn’t remember killing him, but he must have. He was holding the wand.

No. No no no no no. Snape wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to grade his Potions assignment, and the flobberworms weren’t cut up yet. Who was going to teach Harry how to swim with gillyweed? Wait. Dobby had taken the gillyweed. Was that why Snape had followed him here? Was he angry that Harry had used the stolen gillyweed to talk to the dragons?

Did it really matter? His teacher was dead. Harry gasped a breath of air around his constricted throat.

He hadn’t wanted Snape to die. He hadn’t meant to kill him.

“Potter.” He heard Snape’s voice and jerked, because the dead man was still staring up at him. Was he a ghost? He felt hope rise in his chest. He didn’t think that Snape would much like being a ghost, but if he was, then Harry could still talk to him and say he was sorry for killing him.

But wait. If Harry had killed him, would Snape want to talk to him? Maybe he was a vengeful ghost. Here to haunt him by hiding his books and making him forget the gillyweed next time. He shivered. He really, really needed the gillyweed to unstick the wand from his hand.

And he needed Snape. He tried to answer Snape’s ghost, but he still couldn’t make a sound, and he didn’t see a ghost anyway. He must have been hearing things. He leaned over the man’s dead body and felt a wave of hopelessness wash over him. He didn’t want Snape’s ghost. He wanted Snape. He took a shuddering breath and finally managed to push noise past his tight throat. He gave himself over to his grief with a low keening sound.

“Potter.” He heard Snape’s ghost again, then felt a slight shake of his body. A sharp pain in his shoulder jerked Harry awake and he gasped at the combined physical and emotional pain. He doubled over, holding his arm to his body.

“My apologies,” murmured Snape from next to him in the cell. “I tried to be gentle. You appeared to be in the throes of a nightmare.”

Harry looked up through his pain, and relief washed over him. Snape was alive. He was exhausted and unkempt and could use a good meal, a shower, and a week of sleep, but the man was alive. Harry reached out a hand to grasp at Snape’s arm, just to reassure himself that he was warm and breathing. He was. Harry let out a sigh of relief and bowed his head, trying to get his frayed emotions under control. Which was hard. He’d been here for days. He’d been interrogated and tortured and starved and tested, and he was at the end of his rope. He didn’t think he could take much more.

He felt tentative fingers cover his hand where they gripped Snape’s arm, and he appreciated the small amount of comfort. He breathed in and out slowly. After several minutes, he straightened and leaned back against the stone wall. He took stock of the situation. He had been slouched over sideways, twisted uncomfortably in sleep, and his body was punishing him for it now. He could use a good stretch, but he didn’t dare try, with how every muscle pained him.

The lantern Lucius Malfoy had left still shone, its magic-fueled light casting the small cell into lights and shadows. Snape sat next to him, tired but alert, pale-faced and hunched over slightly, and Harry remembered the medical supplies.

“There’s pain potion,” he croaked and cleared his throat. “Salve too. I got at what injuries I could reach, but I couldn’t get your back. I can get it now if you want. Or I can…um, close my eyes if you want privacy or something.”

Snape looked at him as if he’d gone nutters.

Harry flushed. “I didn’t mean to invade your privacy. It’s just…you were hurt, and you needed-”

“What are you playing at?” Snape interrupted harshly, his voice hoarse. Harry shuddered at the reminder of last night’s torture session, of hearing the man’s screams…

When the words registered, he frowned. “What? Nothing.”

“Playing nursemaid, seeing to my injuries,” he hissed. “You do remember what occurred last night, do you not?”

Harry flinched at the reminder. He withdrew his hand quickly, having just realized that he was still clutching Snape’s arm, and averted his eyes with a clenched jaw. Of course he remembered, and now that he was forced to confront it head-on, all of his conflicted feelings were making themselves known.

“Yeah. I remember,” he forced out, tamping down his emotions. “But I think talking about it is bound to be painful enough for the both of us without all our cuts and sprains and bruises to worry about, don’t you?”

Snape stared, a confused frown firmly in place. Or was it a wary frown? Harry didn’t know, and he didn’t have the energy to figure it out.

He sighed and rubbed his aching head with one hand. “I’m not playing at anything. Whatever happened, it happened my whole lifetime ago, right? If we’ve waited this long to deal with it, maybe it can wait until after we see to your cuts and my shoulder? ‘Cause I don’t know about you, but I’m hurting here. Like, a lot.”

He really was. On one hand, it was kind of nice to have something physical to focus on. Not that the searing pain itself was nice. But his shoulder was easier to deal with than his inner turmoil.

Snape wordlessly inched to his other side. His movements were slow and his limbs trembled with the effort. He ran his hands gently over Harry’s shoulder and arm, probing at it, and Harry hissed and turned his head away.

“Not broken, but dislocated,” Snape murmured. “I can put it back in place, but it will hurt.”

“Worse than it already does?”

“Yes.”

Harry squeezed his eyes closed and braced himself. “Okay.”

He expected Snape to do it right away, but instead he heard rustling and felt something nudge at his hand where it braced against the floor. He squinted his eyes open. Snape was holding out the small burlap medicine bag, neatly folded. “Bite down on it,” Snape instructed, and Harry accepted it and placed it in between his teeth. He clamped down on it and squeezed his eyes shut again.

“Ready?”

Before Harry finished grunting his okay, he cried out as molten hot lava ran through his shoulder and reverberated down his arm. He panted and blinked back tears as he bit down hard on the course material of the bag.

“Anywhere else?”

Harry shook his head, eyes tightly shut against the pain. He must have plenty of bruises, especially where Nott had kicked him, but he was positive that nothing was broken. While he worked on controlling his breathing, Snape moved toward the lantern and the supplies that Malfoy had left. He picked up one potions vial, then the other, sniffing each of the contents in turn. He frowned over the silver potion, and Harry wondered again what it was. Before he could ask, Snape stiffly asked, “Who brought it?”

Harry spit out the bag. “Malfoy,” he gasped. “Malfoy left it. I don’t-” he took a shaky breath, “know why. D’you think-” he groaned as he tried to sit up straighter, “he really wanted to help? Or is he working an angle?”

“I couldn’t say,” Snape murmured. “Suffice it to say, it would be in our bests interests not to tell of any possibly unsanctioned generosity to anyone.” The man’s posture was stiff. He was turned away from Harry, and he held one of the vials to his nose for the second time in a way that told Harry that he was stalling.

Harry quietly sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to talking through Voldemort’s accusations either. He thought he might be content to put it off, pretend everything was okay between them for a while longer, but every uncomfortable move Snape made reminded Harry of the fear and grief that he’d seen in the man’s eyes the night before. Which helped to keep his strongest emotions at bay but also reminded him that Snape had fully intended to take his secrets to the grave.

Snape abruptly held out the vial containing pain potion.

Harry shook his head. “Malfoy left it for you. You’d better take it. If either of us needs to be in top shape for later, it’s you.”

Snape set it on the floor and rolled it over to Harry. “Don’t be stubborn,” he said gruffly.

Harry let his gaze settle on the vial. It was tempting. It would be nice to get rid of the aching all through his body. On impulse, he grabbed it and sipped half the contents of the vial and held the rest out to Snape, who didn’t move to take it.

“The vial contains one-”

“One dose, I know.” Harry leaned forward more and jabbed it toward Snape. “Half a dose for both of us is better than no dose for one of us, yeah?”

Snape hesitated, then gave in, grabbing the vial and downing the rest of the potion. They both sat back, and Harry immediately felt his pain lessen. It was still there, but it was more tolerable.

“You know something about Malfoy, don’t you?” Harry asked. Truthfully, he didn’t know if Snape did or not, but it seemed a reasonable shot in the dark. His professor often knew more than he let on. And hey, maybe it would put off the coming conversation for a little while longer.

Snape’s eyes darted to Harry and then quickly back to the vial in his hand. “I know a great many things about Mr. Malfoy.”

“You know what I mean. I heard you talking with him through the floo a few weeks ago. Have you been in touch with him the whole summer? I assume You-Know-Who doesn’t know. So that must mean either Malfoy’s up to something or you are. And when you said you ‘couldn’t say,’ do you mean you don’t know, or that you…well, can’t say?”

Snape paused, then answered, “If I do hold any information relevant to our current situation, I would certainly have a good reason for not divulging it.”

“Yeah, you’re a big fan of not divulging secrets, aren’t you?” Harry retorted, which effectively silenced them both.

The potions vials clinked together as Snape’s shaking hands set them both down and reached for the salve. It was painfully obvious that Snape was uncomfortable. He would never need to sniff a simple salve three times in order to identify it. After several long minutes, during which Snape set down the salve and began to reexamine the silver potion in excruciating detail, Harry couldn’t take it anymore. The silence was only giving him time to rethink everything he’d learned and to feel mixed up all over again. He had to know Snape’s side of the story, and he had to know it now. But how to ask? Where to begin? What to say so that neither of them would explode within the first two minutes?

Not even homemade biscuits could have paved the way for this conversation. Perhaps there was another way to ease into it? The man might be more forthcoming if he knew Harry already knew part of the story. If he planned on being forthcoming at all, that is.

Harry marveled that he didn’t feel angry right now, but it was probably because he felt numb. He didn’t think it would last though. The emotions were just under the surface of his exhausted mind, waiting for something to trigger them into overtaking him completely. Hopefully he could keep a rein on them long enough to hear what Snape had to say.

“What was my mum like?” he asked into the silence.

Snape started. He nearly dropped the vial he was holding but caught it before it could crash to the floor. He set it down with shaking hands and sat against the opposite wall as far as he could from Harry. Which wasn’t very far, in such a cramped space. His face was white, and Harry almost felt bad about surprising him with the abrupt question. Almost.

When Snape made no move to answer, Harry tried again. “Did she give you this?” He fished out the stone from his pocket and held it up for Snape to see. “Did she write that letter to you?” He studied his professor, took in the tick of his jaw and the raw look in his eyes, and realized that this was a side of Snape he hadn’t had to deal with before. He was like a cornered animal, and depending on how Harry handled this, the man was just as likely to shut down as to lash out.

Harry averted his eyes, sensing that the man needed whatever small feeling of space that he could get. “I found a photograph, back at Grimmauld Place. I know you two were friends. I saw you laughing together. I wanted to ask you about her, but…” he cleared his throat, “well, you know. It’s not like you’re the most approachable person on the planet.”

Snape remained silent, and Harry leaned his head back against the cool stone wall, waiting for some kind of a response. He fingered his mum’s stone, drawing comfort from the smooth, cool texture.

Several long minutes passed before Snape said in a rough voice, “Of all you’ve recently learned, that is what you want to know?”

Harry nodded without opening his eyes.

“I killed her,” Snape said forcefully, and Harry flinched. He looked up. Snape’s face was twisted with bitterness. “I killed her and you want to know what - her favorite color?”

“Voldemort killed her,” Harry said and winced at Snape’s shudder. He hadn’t said the name on purpose, but he didn’t apologize. “If you don’t want to tell me about my mum, at least tell me the truth about what happened that night. You owe me that much.”

Snape sent a glare his way, both withering and desperate, enough to tell Harry that lashing out was going to be his way of dealing with this. “You already know the truth, Potter. I do not deny it. I overheard part of the prophecy. I was loyal to the Dark Lord, and I ran straight to him to win his favor,” he spat. “It was my intel that prodded the Dark Lord to hunt you down, to kill-” Snape broke off to take a deep breath. He spat, “I am everything he said. You should have taken your revenge when the wand was in your hands.”

“What did you do after you told him?” Harry asked. He breathed deeply, trying to keep his cool. It was hard to do at the thought of what had happened the night his parents were killed, but he needed answers and he wouldn’t get those answers if he responded to Snape’s attempts to get a rise out of him.

“I was proud of myself for showing myself so useful, so loyal to his cause,” came the bitter reply.

“Yeah, but what did you do?”

“What do you think I did?” Snape said caustically. “I preened in the spotlight of the Dark Lord’s favor! I gratefully accepted his trust and did all that I could to keep it!”

“And after you found out he decided the prophecy meant me?”

Snape clamped his lips shut. He seemed to deflate before Harry’s eyes, probably because Harry wasn’t playing his game. Snape obviously wanted to get this over with, to be condemned by Harry once and for all, and he was trying to rile him up to get there faster. But Harry was determined to drag every piece of information he could from that Slytherin head before he got around to assigning blame. And for once, he felt in control of their exchange. So that’s exactly what he was going to do.

“You want to know what I think happened?” Harry asked.

Snape twitched but didn’t answer.

“I think you regretted telling him because you still cared about my mum. You-Know-Who said you asked him not to kill her, but I think you knew he couldn’t be trusted to keep his word, so you went to Dumbledore. And somewhere along the way, you switched sides. Was it because of that? Were you trying to save my mum? Or was it because you didn’t trust You-Know-Who anymore? Or did something else happen to change your mind about being a Death Eater?”

The man closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “Why does it matter? The end result is the same.”

“It matters to me.”

Snape turned his head and studied Harry through tired eyes. “You convinced the Dark Lord and his followers that you trust me, Potter. It was well done, though you may regret it tonight when he takes his revenge. My plans have come to naught and I very likely will not live to see tomorrow. There is no longer a need for you to determine the extent of trust you are willing to place upon me.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t have to. I wasn’t lying last night. I trust you. That’s not why I want to know.”

Snape’s lips twisted. “You can’t possibly still trust me.”

Harry lifted an arm as if to say, and yet, here we are. “It’s not like I’m not confused or angry or- or- no. You know what?” He felt some of his control snap, and his plan to rationally proclaim his trust went out the window. “I am angry.” He jerked his head and raised his voice. “I had to grow up as an orphan! With people who hated my guts and treated me worse than a dog! And then I had to deal with being famous about something that I don’t even remember! Do you even know what it feels like to be hailed a hero when all I did was survive the night my parents died?” he yelled. “So yeah, I’m angry, because the minute you heard that prophecy, you should have known that You-Know-Who was going to go after some baby who hadn’t even been born yet and couldn’t have done anything to hurt anyone, and you ignored that and you told him anyway! It shouldn’t have mattered if it was my mum’s kid or not, you shouldn’t have done it!” He sat up and pointed at Snape. “And then you have the nerve to go postal on me for eavesdropping! You’re a bloody hypocrite! All I did was listen to things about me and Ron that you bloody well should have told me anyway, and it’s not like I even told anybody else! When you spied on Dumbledore, you went out and decided to RUIN MY LIFE!”

He took a quick, sharp breath and plowed on. “I’m angry and I want to hate you, and I hate that I can’t, and I don’t want to trust you, but I do, because I’ve gotten to know you well enough to know that you’ll save me now if you can or you’ll die trying! So yes, I trust you, and DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME THAT I CAN’T!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. He was heaving breaths by then, he was so worked up, and he glared daggers at Snape.

Snape stared with slightly parted lips.

Harry shifted angrily and grimaced at the pull in his still slightly sore arm. “And you’re not dead yet, so stop talking like you are! You’re the most intelligent and cunning person I know, so FIGURE OUT HOW TO LIVE, DAMN IT!”

They sat in silence for a long time. Not for lack of things to say, but because Harry wanted to say too many things at once. He wanted to scream at Snape and curse him for what he’d done, and at the same time he wanted to pepper him with questions about his mum. He wanted to make Snape understand how deeply he was hurt, but he also didn’t want to lose what they’d built this summer. Whatever they were becoming to each other meant something to him, and he wanted it to mean something to Snape too, but how could it when everything was in the process of falling apart? He saw so many conversational paths forward, and they were a mess of contradictions. But he was afraid to say anything at all, because he might start crying and be a blubbering mess. And how could he get across how simultaneously angry and vulnerable he was feeling if he was a blubbering mess?

He felt lost, and he didn’t know which way was up. He pulled up his knees and hugged them to his chest.

“I loved her,” whispered a voice so broken that Harry wouldn’t have thought it could belong to Snape. He looked over, but the man was staring into the light of the lantern. “Mock me if you will,” he said bitterly. “I never deserved her, I know. She knew it too. But even if I couldn’t have her, I couldn’t let her die. I went to Dumbledore. He saw me for the coward I was, but he protected her. Until he couldn’t.” He turned his face away so that it was in shadows, but not before Harry saw it crumple in anguish. “I agreed to turn spy. I would have done anything to-” He took a ragged breath and feebly waved a hand. “It was all for naught. She- she died. And I remained. I’d have traded my life for hers in a heartbeat.”

Harry bit his tongue to keep from responding, afraid that if he said something, the spell would be broken and Snape would stop sharing. It hadn’t occurred to him that Snape had been in love with Lily - and he knew by Snape’s tone and words that that’s the kind of love it had been. That was a pretty huge detail, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He’d have to consider it later. For now, what else didn’t he know? And now that Snape’s tongue was finally loosened, what else might he share?

After a few minutes, his patience was rewarded. Snape went on with a shuddering breath, “For all that I’d pledged my loyalty to Dumbledore, he knew that I’d only done it for her. For- for myself. He viewed me with disdain back then. Rightfully so. But he extracted a promise from me.” He let out a long breath. “Protect Lily’s son. For her sake. I agreed. How could I not? Her eyes…” He trailed off, then whispered, “I had purpose. A miserable purpose, but it kept me going. Bide my time. Wait for the Dark Lord’s reappearance. Help Dumbledore to defeat him. Protect her son.” He gave a bitter laugh and flicked a hand at Harry and at the cell. “And see how well I’ve managed.”

The silence dragged on that time, long enough that Harry knew he’d have to prod any more information out of the man. It also gave him time to think. Snape’s admission filled in some of the blanks in his knowledge, like when and why Snape had turned spy. And why Snape had always protected him even though he hated him.

“So…” Harry said tentatively, “So what about all the times you wanted me expelled? That wasn’t to protect me.”

Snape shook his head. “That was vindictiveness. I am hardly a saint, Potter. I believe we’ve covered that.”

Harry nodded. “Because you hated me. Because you thought I was like my dad.”

“That wasn’t why.”

“Sure it was. You’ve been saying that for five years!”

“That wasn’t why I hated you,” Snape repeated in a low voice. His face was still turned away, and Harry wished he would look at him. “It was merely my excuse for doing so. I wanted it to be true so much that I forced myself to believe it.”

“Then why?”

He almost missed the man’s broken whisper, “You should have been my son.”

Harry was too shocked to respond.

“I loved her,” he choked out, and Harry could see how difficult it was for him to admit it again. “I loved her, and she married my worst enemy. She should have married me, had my child. Not his. Her beautiful eyes did not belong in the face of James Potter’s son.”

That took the wind out of Harry’s sails. “Oh,” he breathed, at a loss how to respond.

“It disgusts you, doesn’t it?” Snape’s face turned to the light enough for Harry to see how his mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. “To think that I would imagine myself worthy of her.”

Harry wanted to say no, and it would have been the truth, but he couldn’t say anything right then. He was too overwhelmed. He didn’t know what to think. He’d never thought his professor capable of that depth of love, and it was so surreal to think about it. Not to mention that he’d have the image of himself leading an alternate life with a hooked nose to haunt his nightmares for years to come. Well. If he lived through this.

Snape snorted humorlessly, and Harry realized that he’d taken the silence as a yes to his question. But before Harry could correct him, he was saying, “And then you lived in her place. I couldn’t forgive you for that. I would have sacrificed myself for her, and instead she sacrificed herself for you. I hated you with every fiber of my being for that offense.”

Harry thought about snapping that he’d only been a baby at the time of the so-called offense, but he didn’t. Snape knew that. He acknowledged it now, anyway. He wouldn’t be admitting any of this to Harry if he hadn’t come to terms with it himself. He knew he’d been wrong to blame Harry, to hate him for something so far beyond his control. Harry didn’t have to argue his case. What he did need to do was decide whether to forgive or to let it fester.

“You, um, asked Voldemort to spare my mum,” he said haltingly, “but you didn’t care about whether my dad died…or me either. And even if she’d have lived, you still didn’t care whether I lived or died. Did you?”

“I didn’t.” Snape’s matter-of-fact admission hurt, but Harry wasn’t surprised.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out. “Do you care now?”

Snape was silent for so long that Harry wondered if he’d need to repeat the question. Finally, the professor murmured, “I do,” in a quiet but firm voice.

Harry knew that voice well enough to know that he was telling the truth. He took a deep breath, and then another. “Okay then.”

There was a long silence, then Snape turned his head enough to cast a glance toward Harry. His eyes flashed, but he couldn’t hide the grief in the lines of his face. “Okay then what?”

“Okay then, let’s move on. We’ve got other things to worry about right now, don’t we?”

Snape stared. “What do you mean move on? I killed your parents!”

Harry flinched but said, “No. You didn’t. You-Know-Who did that.”

“Because of me.” Snape’s face was regaining some color.

“Because he’s an insane, power-hungry murderer.”

“Surely you are not trying to absolve me of my sins.”

“Do you want to be absolved?”

Snape was becoming agitated, and he set a horrified gaze on Harry. “No! I haven’t carried the guilt of my actions around for sixteen years so that you can brush it under the rug as if it doesn’t matter!”

“It does matter.” Harry swallowed hard around a lump in his throat. “Things that happened in the past always matter. But we can’t change them. I guess all we can do is learn from them, and try to make up for them, yeah?” He shrugged heavily. “Things would be a lot different if you hadn’t done what you’d done, but you’ve torn yourself up over it about as long as I’ve been alive, and I believe you’d do it differently if given another go at it. You’re different now. You’ve proved that by risking your life over and over for the Order and by protecting me for so many years even though you hated me. If anyone deserves another chance, I reckon it’s you.”

Snape’s face was turning an ugly red color. “No. You don’t have the right to forgive me!”

“Why?” Harry said fiercely. “Because you can’t forgive yourself? Well, I’m sorry, but I think you’ve punished yourself well and good for so many years, that there’s not much more I can do to you!” He threw up his hands. “Carrying around that bitterness seems to have worked out so great for you, that you think - what? - the best way to fix everything would be for me to do the same? Well, no thanks! I’ve already had enough misery in my life! Why would I want to heap more on myself?”

Snape started to say something, but Harry was on a roll, so he talked right over him. “I mean, come on! I hated you for five years because you were downright awful to me! You bullied me and intimidated me and insulted me and I hated you for it! But I don’t hate you anymore - heck, I actually like you now, most of the time! And if I can get over all that - all five years of personal hell - and actually start to like you, even respect you, then I can darn well forgive you for something you did before I was even born!” His chest was heaving, he was so worked up.

“And another thing!” he yelled over Snape’s next attempt to speak. “No, it doesn’t disgust me! It makes me proud to be her son, that she was loved by so many people, and I’m glad that you loved her, so STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH!”

Snape didn’t try to speak again until he had been silent for several breaths, and then it was to quietly ask, “Are you finished?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” Harry roared. He was appalled to feel tears burning his eyes, and he buried his head in his drawn-up knees in case he couldn’t stop them from falling. Stupid emotions.

Snape left him alone to get control of himself. Whether it was out of courtesy or because he thought Harry might explode again didn’t matter. Harry needed space, and he couldn’t get it in the small cell, so silence was the next best thing. It lasted for a while, and Harry managed to pull himself together after only a few tears, which he hastily wiped away.

Snape waited until Harry’s breathing was normal to whisper, “I don’t deserve forgiveness.”

Harry sniffed, his head still resting on his knees. “I got Sirius killed,” he said in a muffled voice. “I don’t know if I deserve forgiveness for that either, but I’d still take it if he was around to offer it.”

Snape shifted and made a sound like he was about to argue, probably something about apples and oranges, but he stopped himself, and Harry was glad. Their past sins were different - Harry hadn’t meant for anyone to be harmed, after all - but that didn’t mean he was unfamiliar with the heavy weight of guilt that came with feeling responsible for a loved one’s death. However different the details, they had that much in common.

Snape took a long, slow, shaky breath. “Lily-” his voice cracked, “had the worst temper of anyone I knew. She was inherently kind, but when crossed, she was a force to be reckoned with.”

Harry peeked out from above his knees. Snape was looking at the lantern light again, and he had tears in his eyes. Harry thought he’d better remember this moment, because it was probably the only time in his life he would see Snape cry. Well, almost cry. Same thing. He tucked the surreal image away in his memory and listened with rapt attention as somebody finally told him something real about his mother.

“Nevertheless, her capacity to forgive was beyond my understanding. Whereas I clung to my grievances, she actively searched for reasons to put them behind her. She- she gave me so many chances. Far too many. I’ve often wondered whether I might have chosen differently if I’d not taken her nature for granted. If I’d known the very real possibility of losing her.” he sucked in a breath, then met Harry’s eyes. His face was awash in sadness, but in his eyes was also hope. “I see her in you. You have James Potter’s face, but her expressions. And her nature. So much of her nature. I’d have seen it earlier if I’d been at all honest with myself.”

Harry held perfectly still, wanting more.

“If you were entirely like him,” Snape went on, still holding his gaze, “then you could be nothing like her. Not even a mixture, and nothing of your own making. I convinced myself that you deserved it, that I was free to hate you. I took out my self-loathing on you. I don’t understand how you can forgive that. I don’t understand how you can forgive any of it.” Snape looked completely lost, completely unlike the Severus Snape that Harry knew.

Harry raised his head and bit his lip. “Maybe…maybe sometimes it’s okay to not understand. Doesn’t mean you can’t accept it. Or trust it.” When Snape didn’t respond right away, he tentatively offered, “I’m, um…willing to start over if you are.”

Snape swallowed and looked away.

“I mean, it’s not like we won’t still get on each other’s nerves,” Harry rambled. “I’m still working on the respecting boundaries thing, and you’ve seriously got to figure out how to take compliments and have a sense of humor more often, and not be so secretive all the time, and maybe-” He closed his mouth at Snape’s mild glare and then quirked his lips at that small bit of normalcy. He sheepishly shrugged his good shoulder. “We’re works in progress.”

They studied each other across the small space, and then Snape slowly inched forward and held out his hand. Harry looked from his professor’s face to his hand and back again. “To starting over,” Snape said.

Harry leaned forward and clasped Snape’s hand in his own. “Starting over,” he agreed. It felt so formal, this truce over a handshake, but it felt nice too. It felt freeing, like Harry finally had permission to shed his worries over the past and start anew with something better.

“So what now?” he asked as they settled back into their respective corners.

“Now…we live.” And though Snape still looked like he’d been through the emotional ringer, there was a gleam in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.